The Imperial War Museum

May 12th- now the trip has actually started. The whole group is here and it’s time for our first scheduled adventure. Stop one is the imperial war museum. The first thing we did was stop by a memorial outside the building that was covered in flowers, pictures of soldiers, and poppy wreaths in light of VE Day having just happened. But these weren’t for British soldiers, it was soviets. Something unlikely to be seen in America was a memorial for the 26 million soviet soldiers and citizens killed during the war. The brilliant cast iron and stone sculpture looked sort of like a maiden bowing her head as she lifts a bell over her shoulders. Here Laura gave her site report on the blitz of London. Her report was echoed repeatedly within the museum about the fortitude of the English to stand strong against the Germans. Every citizen was, for the most part, under threat of having a 500-1,000 pound bomb dropped right on their house, destroying their entire lives if not taking them. But the English stood tall in keeping on with their daily lives despite the constant bombings held by Nazi Germany for 50+ days.
Now, once in the museum the first thing I notice is a vastly greater appreciation and reverence for the First World War. A brand new WWI exhibit had just opened in time for us to see it. In America, WWI is often glazed over (in my opinion far too easily and quickly) in America. That’s relatively understandable as we were fighting in the war for only the latter part of the last year of the war. But in England a far greater respect for the war can be seen in this exhibit. The loss of life changed on a horrific scale and Britain had to suffer 4 years, and 700,000 deaths to learn that lesson. The theme of the museums display of the war was just that, it was a horrible lesson to be learned. None of the exhibits glorified or patronized the war. Riddled with gasmasks, signs with bullets holes, and reminders of the conditions of trench warfare such as a display of how muster gas works showed their attitude towards the war. It was a grim, hellish reality check to the nation as to just how powerful and destructive the entire continent had become. I don’t believe America learns that lesson until Vietnam, maybe even Iraq/Afghanistan. This was my favorite exhibit of the museum, by far. I even bought a book on the art of WWI, of which they had several pieces displayed.
Next was WWII, which likewise to the WWI exhibit, differed greatly from how it could be shown in the states. America has a very triumphant and patriotic image of WWII, but for England it was a very long, very demoralizing war that effected the home front. The museum very heavily focused on the home front in England, admiring the courage and tenacity each citizen had in aiding in the war effort. As far as the war itself goes, the museum displayed mostly the mechanics of it, leaving the humanity of it to the home front exhibit. It showed tanks and planes, artillery and mobile vehicles, but never got into the soldiers sacrifice of the war. This varied from the WWI exhibit. It really didn’t pay much tribute to actual fighting the Brits did in North African and mainland Europe. I found the exhibit almost incomplete.
Finally, there was the holocaust museum. This part almost solely focused on the death during the war. This brutally graphic exhibit focused on the prelude of German anti-Semitism in mainland Europe in the beginning. The museum really worked hard on the displaying the history of hatred towards the Jews in Europe in an attempt to rationalize how it happened in Germany in the 1930s. The end part of the holocaust exhibit then depicted the horrors of the mass subjugation and killing of the Jewish population. It used about half personal witnesses and quotes from those who experienced it, and about half harsh facts, data, and numbers to explain it all. It was a saddening and enlightening experience going the IWM. In conclusion, England mostly appears to focus on the home front during the war. They have great appreciation for how the country stuck together and stay dedicated to the war effort. In my experience, the English seem to not pay much attention to the actions of the soldiers themselves which made the WWII exhibit appear rather incomplete.

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